What does maths mean to you?

Today is officially NSPCC Number Day, where schools across the country will be hosting maths-inspired fundraising days to raise money for the NSPCC.

Maths to computer sciences is what flour is to bakers – a vital component. Our studio team use it on a daily basis to help them achieve incredible results. But where else does maths come in?

Most of us use maths as part of our every-day life without even realising we are doing it. Shopping, paying bills, deciding which house to buy, even picking a holiday… it all involved calculations.

The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated,

but to make complicated things simple.

Gudder

But with the new digital age and all new phones coming with a built-in calculator these days, it is getting more and more easy to avoid making your own brain do the sums. Yes, computers can do the mathematical processing for us, but good numeracy skills are essential for ensuring we use it correctly – entering the right data and determining whether the answer seems approximately right (yes, computers can make mistakes too!).

Here are some of our top skills that maths gives us…

Being able to see things clearly

The analytical thinking that maths requires teaches us to be alert for any errors or deception, making sure we think things through logically and clearly as oppose to just blindly believing

Formulating plans

Following on from the last point, maths teaches us to strategically plan and carry out activities in a certain manner, because if not, we face not getting to the desired end goal.

Finding out why

Thanks to maths, we can understand how and why things work, meaning that should anything go wrong in the future, we know how to fix or replicate it.

Quicker thinking

When dealing with complex problems, there are usually only a few different routes we can take to find the solution. Practising this in a maths sense helps put it into practice in real-life scenarios.

If you are participating in a mega-maths-marathon day today for NSPCC, we wish you luck with it and enjoy!